Why Stay Natural?

Training
184

[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:
I don’t see why steroids are so demonized though.[/quote]

Because it makes the best people better.

The demonization is normative behavior; the group is trying to maintain a certain status quo. A group of non-smokers will persuade/tease/antagonize the smoker in the group; a group of smokers will persuade/tease/antagonize the non-smoker. It’s less about the actual topic (tobacco, alcohol, sex, income level, diet, education), and more about maintaining cohesion of the group.

If you want to be bigger, better, stronger in a group of people who don’t really want those same things, they’ll work to keep you from being too different from them. And they’ll generally take as extreme of measures as they can, within certain limits.

On an individual level it might be primarily due to insecurities, but as a group, it’s really about preventing people from deviating too far from the status quo.

That’s one of the reasons anti-smoking and anti-drinking stuff has had a lot of trouble in certain areas… you pretty much have to create an “in-group” of people who don’t smoke or drink, in order to create a strong enough force to antagonize/persuade/legislate and change the overall behavior.

It’s much more a social phenomena than something logical. As long as you try to be “better” than a group, they’ll try to hold you back.[/quote]

I think the steroid demonization the West is just another part of our anti-masculine culture.

Women use birth control no one bats an eye lash.Men use steroids and you’re a cheating scumbag.

Masculinity and masculine behaviour must be controlled legally if necessary.

[/quote]

How is it anti-masculine?

Hell, based on some of the replies not using and working out makes you more of a man.

[/quote]

I’m not saying steroids are anti-masculine.

185

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]baugust wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

Women use birth control no one bats an eye lash.Men use steroids and you’re a cheating scumbag.

Masculinity and masculine behaviour must be controlled legally if necessary.

[/quote]

Plenty of people “bat an eye lash” at women using contraceptives. Less so in the present day, especially in First World countries, but it’s still an issue. If it were considered a PED, you don’t think people would care?

What athletic/performance advantage does birth control offer that is in any way similar to steroids?

If steroid use is against the rules in a given sport, then using steroids, by definition, makes you a cheater in that sport.[/quote]

Well both are hormones just do different things.

I agree with the cheating aspect in sports, but honestly who cares? Let the sports police it within their own organization. [/quote]

Very different things, absolutely. Again, birth control can’t really be compared because it does not offer a performance advantage. I suppose this could be argued, but in my experience, birth control seems to have a negative effect on the ability to gain muscle and/or strength for most women.

I agree with you regarding sports. It just seems a bit irrational that sports claim to have “natural” divisions when it’s so ludicrous in many cases (i.e. CrossFit champs, top level powerlifters).

On that point, it makes little sense for the government to use “danger” as an excuse to ban things like marijuana or steroids when alcohol and cigarettes are as accessible as they are. Why can you walk down the street and smoke a cigarette, which clearly has the ability to harm yourself and other people (without a positive effect, too), but you aren’t aloud to drink a beer? I understand the law against drunk in public, but a beer? I see steroids in a very similar light. Even if they do have serious side effects, to each his own.

186

I have been trying to find a reason for 3 days now. Could not find one.

187

For me, it’s something people have pointed out a few times.

To what end? If I’m not satisfied with my natural limit, what would make me think I would be satisfied with my assisted limit with all the hassles of monitoring associated with it.

But I’m a non-competitor.

That all being said, I don’t give a crap whether people use or not. In fact, I really wish they would legalize it so people can at least be more honest about it and people in general will start to grasp reasonable expectations from natural training.

188

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]Myosin wrote:
Also keep in mind that negative side effects are probably under reported due to the human element of trying not to look like a dumbass, meaning that whatever bad results were self inflicted.

People who participate in an activity for whatever reason will always find ways to justify the activity and will downplay the dangers.

e.g. Jumping off a mountain wearing a wingsuit is just so cool.

It does look cool btw. So does 20 inch biceps.[/quote]

Right but there would be plenty of evidence on anonymous boards of people suffering serious consequences. Or users in your gym talking.

If people are routinely suffering severe life altering side effects from prolonged steroid use, surely there would be some sort of trail leading us to it?
[/quote]

Just another example of seeking affirmation for said activity.

189

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]fightnews wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:
The only thing that has stopped me is fear of acne and/or losing my hair.[/quote]

Accutane and Rogaine.

Hair loss only will speed up if you have a predisposition. If you don’t nothing will change.

[/quote] So basically your position is that there is no negative effects of steroids and you keep almost all of your gains? You must be a user no?
[/quote]

There are definitely negative effects if abused like anything…

And yes you will most or a good portion of your gains if you are not an idiot and keep training/eating properly.

Now when you start talking gains from HGH/slin use… No.[/quote]

Didn’t you say earlier that you never come off? You “blast” and “cruise”? If that’s the case, how can you be sure about keeping/maintaining after a cycle?
[/quote]

Because I have not always blasted and cruised. I only started the cruising a little under 1 year ago…

If you want to get really big blasting and cruising is the way to go imo. It is what all the top drug coaches recommend or most of them.

Without cruising you will lose more str/ size than with cruising. So why take two steps forward and 1 step back when you can just take .25 of a step back.
[/quote]

So then you DO lose gains when off. So the best way to ensure you keep gains from doing steroids is to continue doing steroids while you wait to do more steroids. Makes sense.
[/quote]

Up you’re reading comprehension that is not what anyone said. You lose SOME but NOT all. See big diff

190

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]fightnews wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:
The only thing that has stopped me is fear of acne and/or losing my hair.[/quote]

Accutane and Rogaine.

Hair loss only will speed up if you have a predisposition. If you don’t nothing will change.

[/quote] So basically your position is that there is no negative effects of steroids and you keep almost all of your gains? You must be a user no?
[/quote]

There are definitely negative effects if abused like anything…

And yes you will most or a good portion of your gains if you are not an idiot and keep training/eating properly.

Now when you start talking gains from HGH/slin use… No.[/quote]

Didn’t you say earlier that you never come off? You “blast” and “cruise”? If that’s the case, how can you be sure about keeping/maintaining after a cycle?
[/quote]

Because I have not always blasted and cruised. I only started the cruising a little under 1 year ago…

If you want to get really big blasting and cruising is the way to go imo. It is what all the top drug coaches recommend or most of them.

Without cruising you will lose more str/ size than with cruising. So why take two steps forward and 1 step back when you can just take .25 of a step back.
[/quote]

So then you DO lose gains when off. So the best way to ensure you keep gains from doing steroids is to continue doing steroids while you wait to do more steroids. Makes sense.
[/quote]

Up you’re reading comprehension that is not what anyone said. You lose SOME but NOT all. See big diff[/quote]

Ironic.

He didn’t say you lose ALL either. What he said was true. What he said was analogous to saying “so you lose gains after a smolov cycle.” Sure, you do lose SOME of your gains, but that doesn’t imply you didn’t keep any.

(It’s your, not you’re.)

191

test is cheap enough as it is, and easy to get from where im getting it from. might as well go hard or go home

192

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
In defense of Kennelly’s shrunken state, he might not have access to weights or even care to use 'em. Remember reading an interview with former IFBB pro Craig Titus after he got out of prison where he saod he lost something like 50 pounds over a few months and when asked if he trained while in his verbatim response was “No. There was no point.” Dude was so “addicted” to everything the juice had to offer he literally would not lift while “off”. That’s crazy to me.[/quote]

I’ve seen that attitude before. When Dave Palumbo was incarcerated for selling bad GH, he documented the experience, detailing how he was able to eat and train given the facilities. Despite losing a very considerable amount of size, the guy still walked out (I forget how many months later) looking fairly jacked by normal standards.

S[/quote]

I’ve done a few cycles, and when I lived in the UK know many swole dudes who have done more than their fair share… 2 months after In came off, after PCT (Nolva), training and eating smart - I was down by 6-7 pounds and looked for all intents and purposes the same (no-one made any ‘wow, you’ve lost some weight’ comments at any point, although these were people I saw everyday)
I felt OK about not be able to lift as frequently, no so much in terms of weight lifted (cos I love the iron game). I got into Olympic lifting, learning new stuff and keeping things fresh - eccentric-less work can be done more often, so I was able to train quite a bit. Put 5 of the 7 pounds on that I lost when I came off, and will certainly go on a cycle again in the future (I’m nearly 37 with a kid on the way).

Just my 2 cents

193

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]fightnews wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:
The only thing that has stopped me is fear of acne and/or losing my hair.[/quote]

Accutane and Rogaine.

Hair loss only will speed up if you have a predisposition. If you don’t nothing will change.

[/quote] So basically your position is that there is no negative effects of steroids and you keep almost all of your gains? You must be a user no?
[/quote]

There are definitely negative effects if abused like anything…

And yes you will most or a good portion of your gains if you are not an idiot and keep training/eating properly.

Now when you start talking gains from HGH/slin use… No.[/quote]

Didn’t you say earlier that you never come off? You “blast” and “cruise”? If that’s the case, how can you be sure about keeping/maintaining after a cycle?
[/quote]

Because I have not always blasted and cruised. I only started the cruising a little under 1 year ago…

If you want to get really big blasting and cruising is the way to go imo. It is what all the top drug coaches recommend or most of them.

Without cruising you will lose more str/ size than with cruising. So why take two steps forward and 1 step back when you can just take .25 of a step back.
[/quote]

So then you DO lose gains when off. So the best way to ensure you keep gains from doing steroids is to continue doing steroids while you wait to do more steroids. Makes sense.
[/quote]

Up you’re reading comprehension that is not what anyone said. You lose SOME but NOT all. See big diff[/quote]

Up your grammatical skills. My reading comprehension is just fine. I know exactly what he wrote.

194

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]fightnews wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:
The only thing that has stopped me is fear of acne and/or losing my hair.[/quote]

Accutane and Rogaine.

Hair loss only will speed up if you have a predisposition. If you don’t nothing will change.

[/quote] So basically your position is that there is no negative effects of steroids and you keep almost all of your gains? You must be a user no?
[/quote]

There are definitely negative effects if abused like anything…

And yes you will most or a good portion of your gains if you are not an idiot and keep training/eating properly.

Now when you start talking gains from HGH/slin use… No.[/quote]

Didn’t you say earlier that you never come off? You “blast” and “cruise”? If that’s the case, how can you be sure about keeping/maintaining after a cycle?
[/quote]

Because I have not always blasted and cruised. I only started the cruising a little under 1 year ago…

If you want to get really big blasting and cruising is the way to go imo. It is what all the top drug coaches recommend or most of them.

Without cruising you will lose more str/ size than with cruising. So why take two steps forward and 1 step back when you can just take .25 of a step back.
[/quote]

So then you DO lose gains when off. So the best way to ensure you keep gains from doing steroids is to continue doing steroids while you wait to do more steroids. Makes sense.
[/quote]

Up you’re reading comprehension that is not what anyone said. You lose SOME but NOT all. See big diff[/quote]

Up your grammatical skills. My reading comprehension is just fine. I know exactly what he wrote.[/quote]

I believe I said you will keep the majority or large portion of your gains, if you keep training and eating correctly.

And of course there are other factors like: what doses you were running, what your cruise level is at compared to the blast, genetics, slin/hgh use or not, etc.

I don’t understand why you are being such a dick about this. It is pretty straight forward. Yes, you do lose some gains, but not all. How much simpler can I state it?

I get that you don’t like steroids and that is fine. But get off peoples nuts who do.

195

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]fightnews wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:
The only thing that has stopped me is fear of acne and/or losing my hair.[/quote]

Accutane and Rogaine.

Hair loss only will speed up if you have a predisposition. If you don’t nothing will change.

[/quote] So basically your position is that there is no negative effects of steroids and you keep almost all of your gains? You must be a user no?
[/quote]

There are definitely negative effects if abused like anything…

And yes you will most or a good portion of your gains if you are not an idiot and keep training/eating properly.

Now when you start talking gains from HGH/slin use… No.[/quote]

Didn’t you say earlier that you never come off? You “blast” and “cruise”? If that’s the case, how can you be sure about keeping/maintaining after a cycle?
[/quote]

Because I have not always blasted and cruised. I only started the cruising a little under 1 year ago…

If you want to get really big blasting and cruising is the way to go imo. It is what all the top drug coaches recommend or most of them.

Without cruising you will lose more str/ size than with cruising. So why take two steps forward and 1 step back when you can just take .25 of a step back.
[/quote]

So then you DO lose gains when off. So the best way to ensure you keep gains from doing steroids is to continue doing steroids while you wait to do more steroids. Makes sense.
[/quote]

Up you’re reading comprehension that is not what anyone said. You lose SOME but NOT all. See big diff[/quote]

Up your grammatical skills. My reading comprehension is just fine. I know exactly what he wrote.[/quote]

I believe I said you will keep the majority or large portion of your gains, if you keep training and eating correctly.

And of course there are other factors like: what doses you were running, what your cruise level is at compared to the blast, genetics, slin/hgh use or not, etc.

I don’t understand why you are being such a dick about this. It is pretty straight forward. Yes, you do lose some gains, but not all. How much simpler can I state it?

I get that you don’t like steroids and that is fine. But get off peoples nuts who do.[/quote]

Where did I say I didn’t like steroids? I think they’re perfectly fine and will at some point probably use. But, you talk about keeping some of the gains in conjunction with “cruise” dosages. You haven’t said anything about coming completely “off”. I’ve personally yet to meet a single person who’s kept the majority of their on cycle gains. Why do you think almost no one does just one cycle? Did you really just write that I need to “get off steroid users nuts”? Was that the literary manifestation of roid rage?

196

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]fightnews wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]xXSeraphimXx wrote:
The only thing that has stopped me is fear of acne and/or losing my hair.[/quote]

Accutane and Rogaine.

Hair loss only will speed up if you have a predisposition. If you don’t nothing will change.

[/quote] So basically your position is that there is no negative effects of steroids and you keep almost all of your gains? You must be a user no?
[/quote]

There are definitely negative effects if abused like anything…

And yes you will most or a good portion of your gains if you are not an idiot and keep training/eating properly.

Now when you start talking gains from HGH/slin use… No.[/quote]

Didn’t you say earlier that you never come off? You “blast” and “cruise”? If that’s the case, how can you be sure about keeping/maintaining after a cycle?
[/quote]

Because I have not always blasted and cruised. I only started the cruising a little under 1 year ago…

If you want to get really big blasting and cruising is the way to go imo. It is what all the top drug coaches recommend or most of them.

Without cruising you will lose more str/ size than with cruising. So why take two steps forward and 1 step back when you can just take .25 of a step back.
[/quote]

So then you DO lose gains when off. So the best way to ensure you keep gains from doing steroids is to continue doing steroids while you wait to do more steroids. Makes sense.
[/quote]

Up you’re reading comprehension that is not what anyone said. You lose SOME but NOT all. See big diff[/quote]

Up your grammatical skills. My reading comprehension is just fine. I know exactly what he wrote.[/quote]

I believe I said you will keep the majority or large portion of your gains, if you keep training and eating correctly.

And of course there are other factors like: what doses you were running, what your cruise level is at compared to the blast, genetics, slin/hgh use or not, etc.

I don’t understand why you are being such a dick about this. It is pretty straight forward. Yes, you do lose some gains, but not all. How much simpler can I state it?

I get that you don’t like steroids and that is fine. But get off peoples nuts who do.[/quote]

Where did I say I didn’t like steroids? I think they’re perfectly fine and will at some point probably use. But, you talk about keeping some of the gains in conjunction with “cruise” dosages. You haven’t said anything about coming completely “off”. I’ve personally yet to meet a single person who’s kept the majority of their on cycle gains. Why do you think almost no one does just one cycle? Did you really just write that I need to “get off steroid users nuts”? Was that the literary manifestation of roid rage?
[/quote]

I did state about coming completely off. The first 3.5 years of use I came off for months at a time. I guess you missed that? I have only been cruising and blasting for a little under a year.

I didn’t lose the majority of my gains. It is not so cut and dry. Will some lose the majority of their gains? Yes, just like anything else you will have people all over the spectrum.

Another issue is if the person’s natural T is coming back or not. If its not, then yes you will lose much more of your gains by going cold turkey.

People usually don’t do just one cycle because an impressive physique is not built with one cycle.

Yes, I literarily roid raged on you.

197

People cycle more than once because they see how effective gear is and realize training naturally is a much slower route to reaching their physique goals.

Also gear is cheap. Cruising on therapeutic doses costs how much to run monthly?

198

Myosin and to anyone else regarding long term usage:

The worst I’ve seen is guys having messed up BP and lipids long term and never getting back in the normal range after AAS use. Also joint and liver issues. Though most with elevated liver enzymes see their numbers return to normal simply by taking a break from orals - the problem is more the lack of monitoring of one’s health or not discontinuing use after seeing signs in blood test results.

There’s a guy at my friend’s gym, huge dude who has aggressively used for years on end. His joint pain got so bad he has to take pain killers daily to the point where he now has a stomach ulcer from taking advil daily.

Again though he is an aggressive user.

aggressive user = cycling non stop, high doses, stacking multiple drugs, not listening to your body.

No one drops dead from steroid use, every case of a steroid user dying has been caused of OTHER substances they were taking.

199

Also if you aggressively use for years it takes longer and gets harder to get your natural T to reproduce

200

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:
I don’t see why steroids are so demonized though.[/quote]

Because it makes the best people better.

The demonization is normative behavior; the group is trying to maintain a certain status quo. A group of non-smokers will persuade/tease/antagonize the smoker in the group; a group of smokers will persuade/tease/antagonize the non-smoker. It’s less about the actual topic (tobacco, alcohol, sex, income level, diet, education), and more about maintaining cohesion of the group.

If you want to be bigger, better, stronger in a group of people who don’t really want those same things, they’ll work to keep you from being too different from them. And they’ll generally take as extreme of measures as they can, within certain limits.

On an individual level it might be primarily due to insecurities, but as a group, it’s really about preventing people from deviating too far from the status quo.

That’s one of the reasons anti-smoking and anti-drinking stuff has had a lot of trouble in certain areas… you pretty much have to create an “in-group” of people who don’t smoke or drink, in order to create a strong enough force to antagonize/persuade/legislate and change the overall behavior.

It’s much more a social phenomena than something logical. As long as you try to be “better” than a group, they’ll try to hold you back.[/quote]

I agree that it’s a social phenomenon. However, I’m more of the opinion that violation of normativity is necessary, but not sufficient, for an act to be labelled deviant. It also depends on whether that violation is in line with societal/group values or not. For example, being a rock star is hardly normative, yet we idolize them. They have achieved great fame and fortune by doing something we assume they love, which is very much in line with societal values.

Building a lean, muscular physique is also in line with the values we’re supposed to have, but we reject one means (i.e. steroids) of doing so. Why? I can think of a couple good reasons.

  1. The commonly held view of the ethics of sport (i.e. the “it’s cheating” argument). Personally, I think the this view is bullshit, but I’m not going to get into why. While this explains part of the associated stigma, I think this is a relatively weak reason in terms of explaining why steroids are so stigmatized in particular. I mean there isn’t nearly as much of a reaction to amphetamine use in college students as a violation of academic ethics.

  2. The main reason I believe steroids are so stigmatized has to do with gender norms and sexuality, which are topics we’re really damn touchy about, even for an era that is supposedly tolerant. If you talk to a steroid-naive (i.e. average non-lifter) person about AAS they aren’t going to say, “aren’t you worried about your lipid profile?” Health has nothing to do with it. However, they might say “OMG! Your dick is going to shrink and you’re going to grow tits.” Possible gender bender/sexual performance side effects are highly stigmatized. I think this is at least part of the reason why TRT is so vilified while society seems to reserve some special mystique for hGH use in “anti-aging”.

201

[quote]baugust wrote:
Very different things, absolutely. Again, birth control can’t really be compared because it does not offer a performance advantage. [/quote]

Sure it does just not the way you’re thinking about it. All things being equal will the woman who has 3 kids in 5 years or the woman on BC that has 0 kids in 5 years get that promotion?

202

Some have proposed that the use of PEDs for Physique/Strength enhancement is simply an extension of natural efforts. Nothing could be further from the truth; it is an entirely seperate path. I take no issue with the choices others make; but let’s be clear about what that choice means.

203

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]baugust wrote:
Very different things, absolutely. Again, birth control can’t really be compared because it does not offer a performance advantage. [/quote]

Sure it does just not the way you’re thinking about it. All things being equal will the woman who has 3 kids in 5 years or the woman on BC that has 0 kids in 5 years get that promotion? [/quote]

Ridiculous argument. You’re suggesting that a woman who is not on birth control = having kids. There are plenty of ways to prevent pregnancy without the use of birth control. The woman on birth control has zero kids because she chooses to. The woman not on birth control may not be on birth control because of the side effects or countless other reasons, but that doesn’t mean she has kids, does it?

What if the woman who has three kids in five years has a stay-at-home father. Which one gets the promotion now?

Again, my argument was based on comparing birth control as a PED (because that’s what steroids are). Birth control is not a PED. I wouldn’t take steroids with the end goal of being a better graduate student; I would take steroids to be a better athlete.